We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people should be made equal, that they are endowed by their government with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are jobs, healthcare and housing.–That to secure these rights, Governments must rule over the people, deriving their just powers from the consent of the elite.

While I like to think I came up with a few clever lines, it’s hard to laugh when you think about what’s happened ever since America’s real Declaration of Independence.

Here’s what the Tax Foundation tells us about the evolution of taxation.

Since our country’s founding, we have witnessed…federal revenues taking up less than 5 percent of our economy to more than 20 percent. …Taxation in the United States in 1776 was incredibly different than what it is today. There were no income taxes, no corporate taxes, and no payroll taxes.

Instead, the government relied on a relatively modest set of tariffs and excise taxes.

…taxes primarily existed on imports of goods and services to the colonies, as well as on the sale of particular products. What sort of items were these tariffs imposed on? Primarily, they were levied on ships on a per-tonnage basis, slaves, tobacco, and alcoholic beverages. In all, the average tariff worked out to about 10 percent of the value of imports.

Amazingly, this very modest form of taxation lasted for more than 100 years. It wasn’t until that wretched day when the 16th Amendment was approved that the stage was set for the oppressive tax system that now exists.

By the way, when there was no income tax, there also was very little government spending.

All of which makes today more costly, as the Washington Examinerreports.

Hundreds of federal regulations on beer, fireworks, hamburgers and even corn-on-the-cob cost families an additional $40, according to a new report on the July 4th tax. American Action Forum regulatory policy director Sam Batkins researched the regulations on the holiday treats to determine the costs. And they are huge.

The Committee of Five consisted of the senior Pennsylvanian Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, New York’s Robert Livingston, the Massachusetts stalwart champion of independence John Adams, and a rather quiet thirty-three year old Virginian named Thomas Jefferson. After a series of meetings to decide on the outline of the declaration, the committee assigned Jefferson to write the first draft. …Jefferson did not have three leisurely weeks to write. He had merely a few days. Needing to work fast, Jefferson had to borrow, and he had two sources in front of him from which to crib. The first was his draft preamble for the Virginia constitution that contained a list of grievances, which was strikingly similar to the first group of charges against the King that ended up on the Declaration. The second was a preliminary version of the Virginia Declaration of Rights that had been drafted by George Mason in his room at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg where the provincial convention was being held. …Mason’s May 27th draft proved handy indeed in composing the Declaration’s famous preamble. Its first two articles present two fundamental ideas that lie at the core of a Republican Constitution. The first idea is that first come rights, and then comes government.

To be sure, the Founders’ view of rights was grossly imperfect. Blacks and Indians were grossly mistreated and women were not full citizens.

But by the standards that existed then, the America’s Founders did a remarkable job of curtailing the power of the state and enhancing the rights of individuals.

The good news is that there have been some significant expansions of liberty ever since the Declaration of Independence. A bloody war was fought in part to end the scourge of slavery. The toxic combination of racism and statism embodied by the Jim Crow laws has been abolished. And women now have full political and economic rights.

And just today, in a story in the Washington Post about the Center for Freedom and Prosperity (I’m Chairman of the Center’s Board of Directors), former Senator Carl Levin has accused me and others of “trading with the enemy” because of our work to protect and promote tax competition.

Here’s the relevant passage.

Former senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.)…said in a recent interview that the center’s activities run counter to America’s values and undermine the nation’s ability to raise revenue. “It’s like trading with the enemy,” said Levin, whose staff on a powerful panel investigating tax havens regularly faced public challenges from the center. “I consider tax havens the enemy. They’re the enemy of American taxpayers and the things we try to do with our revenues — infrastructure, roads, bridges, education, defense. They help to starve us of resources that we need for all the things we do. And this center is out there helping them to accomplish that.”

Before even getting into the issue of tax competition and tax havens and whether it’s disloyal to want limits on the power of governments, I can’t resist addressing the “starve us of resources” comment by Levin.

He was in office from 1979-2015. During that time, federal tax receipts soared from $463 billion to $3.2 trillion. Even if you only count the time the Center for Freedom and Prosperity has existed (created in late 2000), tax revenues have jumped from $2 trillion to $3.2 trillion.

At the risk of understatement, Senator Levin has never been on a fiscal diet. And he wasn’t bashful about spending all that revenue. He received an “F” rating from the National Taxpayers Union every single year starting in 1993.

Let’s now address the main implication of the Washington Post story, which is that it’s somehow wrong or improper for there to be an organization that defends tax competition and fiscal sovereignty, particularly if some of its funding comes from people in low-tax jurisdictions.

The Post offer[s] an inside look at how a little-known nonprofit, listing its address as a post office box in Alexandria, became a persistent opponent of U.S. and global efforts to regulate the offshore world. …the center met again and again with government officials and members of the offshore industry around the world… Quinlan and Mitchell launched the center in October 2000. …The center had two stated goals. Overseas, the center set out to persuade countries on the blacklist not to cooperate with the OECD, which it derided as a “global tax cartel.” In Washington, the center lobbied the Bush administration to withdraw its support for the OECD and also worked to block anti-tax haven legislation on Capitol Hill. To spread the word, the center testified before Congress, published reports and opinion pieces in leading financial publications, and drafted letters to lawmakers and administration officials. Representatives of the center crisscrossed the globe and sponsored discussions in 2000 and 2001, traveling to London, Paris, the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, Panama, Barbados and the British Virgin Islands.

To Senator Levin and other folks on the left, I guess this is the fiscal equivalent of “trading with the enemy.”

In reality, this is a fight over whether there should be any limits on the fiscal power of governments. On one side are high-tax governments and international bureaucracies like the OECD, along with their ideological allies. They want to impose a one-size-fits-all model based on the extra-territorialdouble-taxation of income that is saved and invested, even if it means blacklisting and threatening low-tax jurisdictions (the so-called tax havens).

And, yes, that means we sometimes side with Switzerland or Panama rather than the Treasury Department. Our patriotism is to the ideals of the Founding Fathers, not to the bad tax policy of the U.S. government.

In any event, I’m proud to say that the Center’s efforts have been semi-successful.

In May 2001, the center claimed a key victory. In a dramatic departure from the Clinton administration, Paul O’Neill, the incoming Treasury Secretary appointed by Bush, announced that the United States would back away from the reforms pushed by the OECD. …fewer than half of the nations on the OECD blacklist pledged to become more transparent in their tax systems, a victory for anti-tax forces such as the center.

Even the other side says the Center is effective.

…said Elise Bean, former staff director and chief counsel of Levin’s Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which started investigating tax havens in 2001. “They travel all around the world and they have had a tremendous impact.” …“They were very effective at painting the OECD’s work as end-times are here for tax competition, and we’re going to have European tax rates imposed upon the whole world if the OECD’s work continued,” said Will Davis, the former head of OECD public affairs in Washington.

What’s most impressive is that all this was accomplished with very little funding.

Tax returns for the center and a foundation set up in its name reported receiving at least $1.4 million in revenue from 2003 to 2010.

In other words, the Center and its affiliated Foundation managed to thwart some of the world’s biggest and most powerful governments with a very modest budget averaging about $175,000 per year. And I don’t even get compensation from the Center, even though I’m the one who almost got thrown in a Mexican jail for opposing the OECD!

So while Senator Levin had decades of experience spending other people’s money in a promiscuous fashion, I work for an organization, the Cato Institute, that is ranked as the most cost-effective major think tank, and I’m on the Board of a small non-profit that has a track record of achieving a lot with very little money.

P.P.P.S. All things considered, I think the reporters who put together the story were reasonably fair, though there was a bit of editorializing such as referring to one low-tax jurisdiction as a “notorious tax haven.” When they write about France, do they ever refer to it as a “notorious tax hell”?

Also, when writing about trips the Center arranged for congressional staff to low-tax jurisdictions, the article stated, “The staffers reported receiving from $900 to $2,360 for the trips”, which makes it sound as if the staffers got paid. That’s wrong. The sentence should have read, “The staffers reported that the Center’s travel and lodging expenses ranged from $900 to $2,360 for the trips.”

…the group Disarm the Police…had announced on social media that they had planned to burn the flag in protest of NYPD policies.

But the event didn’t go as planned, thanks to members of the Hallowed Sons Motorcycle Club.

One of the bikers rushed forward in a fit of rage and kicked over the grill, sending embers flying. He then doused it as members of the pro-flag crowd chanted “USA! USA!” The bikers then started trying to rough up the protesters.

Here’s where the ironic part of the story.

…anti-NYPD protesters needed New York’s Finest to save their skin from a gang of angry bikers who tried to pummel them… The protesters were shielded by the cops and escorted out of the park.

And here’s some evidence that silly government regulations (a New York City tradition) take the fun out of protesting and counter-protesting.

While it’s illegal to openly burn anything in Fort Greene Park, the self-styled anarchists managed to find a loophole in the law that allows cooking in closed barbecue grills.

A few final comments on this story.

I realize I shouldn’t care, but I’m always dumbfounded when left-wing crazies refer to themselves as anarchists. Don’t they realize that you can’t be an anarchist while simultaneously advocating for much bigger government?

In any event, the supposed anarchists obviously aren’t very bright since they thought it was a good idea to get on the wrong side of a bunch of bikers.

Since this is America’s Independence Day, I can’t help but think they got what they deserved, even though in the abstract I support their right to protest and burn flags that they bought with their own money (or, more likely, with money from their parents or from the welfare office).

But I also like these low-tax jurisdictions for non-tax reasons. And high on my list is that I want people to have safe havens for their money as an insurance policy against governments that are incompetent, venal, abusive and/or corrupt.

And for the same reason, I like alternative currencies such as bitcoin (click here is you want to see a short and informative primer). These “cryptocurrencies” give people a way of protecting themselves when government mis-manage or mis-use monetary and financial systems.

And we have some very compelling real-world examples of how this works.

We’ll start with Greece, where people with bitcoins still enjoy liquidity. Those using the banking system, by contrast, are in trouble because of irresponsible government policy.

There is at least one legal way to get your euros out of Greece these days, to guard against the prospect that they might be devalued into drachmas: convert them into bitcoin. Although absolute figures are hard to come by, Greek interest has surged in the online “cryptocurrency”, which is out of the reach of monetary authorities and can be transferred at the touch of a smartphone screen. New customers depositing at least 50 euros with BTCGreece, the only Greece-based bitcoin exchange, open only to Greeks, rose by 400 percent between May and June, according to its founder Thanos Marinos, who put the number at “a few thousand”. The average deposit quadrupled to around 700 euros.

Why are people shifting to bitcoin?

One part of the answer is that bitcoins are insulated from political risk.

Using bitcoin could allow Greeks to do one of the things that capital controls were put in place this week to prevent: transfer money out of their bank accounts and, if they wish, out of the country. …the bitcoin buyers’ main aim was to shield their money against the prospect that Greece might leave the euro zone and convert all the deposits in Greek banks into a greatly devalued national currency.

And is anyone surprised that there’s interest from other failing welfare states?

Coinbase, one of the world’s biggest bitcoin wallet providers, which is not currently accessible to Greeks, said it had seen huge interest from Italy, Spain and Portugal.

And it’s just a matter of time, I suspect, before there will be interest from France, Belgium, Japan, etc.

Now let’s look at Argentina, another corrupt and dysfunctional government that has a sordid history of abusing both the monetary system and the financial system.

The New York Times in May had an in-depth report on how people in that nation have been using bitcoin to circumvent bad government policy.

His occupation is one of the world’s oldest, but it remains a conspicuous part of modern life in Argentina…to serve local residents who want to trade volatile pesos for more stable and transportable currencies like the dollar. For Castiglione, however, money-changing means converting pesos and dollars into Bitcoin, a virtual currency, and vice versa. …Castiglione joked about the corruption of Argentine politics as he peeled off five $100 bills, which he was trading for a little more than 1.5 Bitcoins, and gave them to his client. …before showing up, he had transferred the Bitcoins — in essence, digital tokens that exist only as entries in a digital ledger — from his Bitcoin address to Castiglione’s.

Why are so many people interested in bitcoin?

Because the government is debasing and manipulating the official currency in ways that indirectly steal from the citizenry.

Had the German client instead sent euros to a bank in Argentina, the musician would have been required to fill out a form to receive payment and, as a result of the country’s currency controls, sacrificed roughly 30 percent of his earnings to change his euros into pesos. Bitcoin makes it easier to move money the other way too. The day before, the owner of a small manufacturing company bought $20,000 worth of Bitcoin from Castiglione in order to get his money to the United States, where he needed to pay a vendor, a transaction far easier and less expensive than moving funds through Argentine banks.

And don’t forget that Argentina’s government is one of the nations with a track record of stealing money when it’s left in banks.

Commerce of this sort has proved useful enough to Argentines that Castiglione has made a living buying and selling Bitcoin for the last year and a half. …The money brought to Argentina using Bitcoin circumvents the onerous government restrictions on receiving money from abroad. …It makes sense that a place like Argentina would be fertile ground for a virtual currency. Inflation is constant: At the end of 2014, for example, the peso was worth 25 percent less than it was at the beginning of the year. And that adversity pales in comparison with past bouts of hyperinflation, defaults on national debts and currency revaluations. Less than half of the population use Argentine banks and credit cards. Even wealthy Argentines fear keeping their money in the country’s banks.

Bitcoin protects consumers from rapacious and feckless politicians.

…in the fall of 2012, when the Argentine government ordered PayPal to bar direct payments between Argentines, part of the government’s effort to slow the exchange of pesos into other currencies. …Argentines were using Bitcoin to circumvent the government’s restrictions. “…competition eliminates all currencies from noneffective governments,” it said… In Argentina, the banks refuse to work with Bitcoin companies like Coinbase, which isn’t surprising, given the government’s tight control over banks. This hasn’t deterred Argentines, long accustomed to changing money outside official channels.

In an ideal world, of course, there would be no need for bitcoin. At least not as a hedge against bad government policy (if a world of private monies, of course, cryptocurrencies presumably would be one of the market-based options).

But we don’t live in an ideal world. Some of us already live in nations where government financial and/or monetary policy make bitcoin a very important alternative.

And others of us live in countries where there is good reason to worry about future instability because of misguided fiscal, monetary, and economic policy. So it will be good if we have options such as bitcoin.

That doesn’t mean, to be sure, that the average person should transfer all their liquid wealth into bitcoin. Indeed, I’ve specifically stated that “I wouldn’t put my (rather inadequate) life savings in bitcoin.”

But I certainly want that option if future events warrant a change of strategy.

P.S. If you’re in a patriotic mood (and if you like the Second Amendment), then you’ll definitely enjoy this slideshow.

I’ll agree on the flag and joining the military, but voting hardly seems patriotic – particularly if you’re looking for handouts and voting for candidates who have nothing but disdain for America’s founding principles (as illustrated by this Glenn McCoy cartoon).

About eight voters in 10 believe staying informed on the news (79 percent) and paying taxes (78 percent) are ways to show national loyalty. …there is agreement across party lines on the patriotic merits of paying taxes: 80 percent of Democrats, Republicans and Tea Partiers say paying taxes shows patriotism.

I disagree. I have no objection to staying informed, but is it really patriotic to watch the news instead of a game show? What about the people who are so disgusted by Washington that they’ve tuned out? I suspect they’re very patriotic.

But if you live in an oppressive totalitarian nation (think Venezuela) or a nation with confiscatory taxation (such as France), then paying taxes is a sign of stupidity rather than patriotism.

Let’s look at one final set of results.

…the most significant differences are on the act of owning a gun. Some 79 percent of Tea Party activists consider owning a gun an act of patriotism, as do 69 percent of Republicans. Democrats (35 percent) and independents (40 percent) are much less likely to feel that way. Men (60 percent) say being a gun owner shows patriotism, while over half of women feel it does not (56 percent).

Needless to say, I’m very sympathetic to gun ownership. Though I think someone can be a strong patriot (in the proper sense) without owning a gun.

Now let’s review some new data from the Pew Research Center, as reported by Byron York of the Washington Examiner. Pew found that ideology affects patriotism.

They divided the electorate into seven groups and found that six of the groups were at least somewhat patriotic.

Pew asked all whether they “often feel proud to be American.” The conservatives are most proud — 81 percent of the business conservatives and 72 percent of the steadfast conservatives say they often feel U.S. pride. There’s a dropoff after that, but still, majorities of other groups express pride. Fifty-nine percent of the faith and family left say they often feel pride; 56 percent of both the next generation left and young outsiders feel pride; and 51 percent of the hard-pressed skeptics, despite their skepticism, still often feel proud to be Americans.

So who isn’t patriotic?

Only among the solid liberals does the number fall below a majority, with just 40 percent saying they often feel proud. Why do they feel the way they do? …They are the most loyal Democrats of all groups and “unflagging supporters of Barack Obama.” Solid liberals are more urban than other groups, more likely to use public transportation, more likely to recycle. They’re the most likely to say they want to live close to museums and theaters, and the least likely to hunt or fish. …Today they give the president a job approval rating of 84 percent — 40 points higher than the public at large. They identify with the Democratic Party more than any of the conservative groups identify with the GOP. …Solid liberals are more likely to say that compassion and helping others are their core values.

And based on some previous research, you can safely assume that you won’t find these “solid liberals” at any July 4th parades.

Let’s close with a very good video released last year by Reason TV.

And here are a couple of cartoons with a 4th-of-July theme, staring with this gem from Glenn McCoy.

To save readers some time, the honest answer to the question is that I don’t have many profound thoughts about the controversy surrounding Edward Snowden and snooping by the National Security Agency.

But since I’ve been asked by several people to pontificate on the matter, I won’t let trivial obstacles such as lack of knowledge or absence of expertise preclude me from giving a response. Heck, I’ve written about drone attacks, and terrorism policy, and my knowledge in those areas may be even less than the President’s understanding of the economy!

Normally, when I’m in the dark about some matter of public policy, I simply see what some of my Cato colleagues have said about an issue. But as you can see here, here, and here, those experts are split on the topic (brings to mind the joke about the politician who, when asked his position on some legislation, said “some of my friends are for the plan and some of my friends are opposed, and I always stick with my friends).

So I reckon I’ll just wing it with a couple of observations and a concluding thought about patriotism.

As I noted a couple of weeks ago, I want – at a minimum – there to be judicial oversight whenever the government spies on American citizens, but I also think some cost-benefit analysis is appropriate. Just because a court has the power to approve snooping, that doesn’t mean it’s a sensible use of law enforcement resources.

It probably isn’t. As such, I side with other Americans in not wanting to give up my liberties simply because some politicians say our security is threatened.

That being said, I find myself irked by Mr. Snowden’s behavior. Some people believe he is a genuine patriot (in the proper sense of the word) motivated by libertarian principles, but the fact that he fled to Russia (perhaps en route to Cuba, Venezuela, or Ecuador) doesn’t reflect well on him.

For all its flaws, I rank the United States far above places such as Russia, China, and assorted Latin American thug regimes.

I understand that Snowden presumably wants to go someplace where he can’t be snatched by American officials, but he will cross the line and unambiguously become a traitor in my eyes if he gives sensitive material to unfriendly foreign governments.

And by sensitive, I don’t necessarily mean classified. I’m sure the federal government goes way overboard in labeling material as secret or classified. I’m talking about information that could compromise the security of the United States.

I’m guessing Edward Snowden has such information. If he shares it with hostile governments, he’s a bad person.

Indeed, I just appeared on Fox Business Network to talk about a new study showing an exodus from Maryland following the imposition of some class warfare tax hikes (which simply confirms earlier analysis showing the same trend), and at no point was there any discussion about whether the state’s taxpayers had some sort of moral obligation to stay put and get fleeced by Obama-style tax policy.

But when a successful taxpayer decides to move from the United States to Singapore, there’s a different reaction. All of a sudden, that person becomes selfish, greedy, and unpatriotic.

Simply stated, we self-identify as Americans (if we have any patriotism) and don’t have instinctive loyalty to individual states. So we don’t think there’s anything wrong when an American flees from New Jersey to Florida. But it rubs us the wrong way when American citizens renounce their citizenship. Even when we rationally understand that they are making the best possible choice for their families.

This issue has become hot again now that another big name has decided to escape the IRS, and I discuss the issue on Fox News. In my first soundbite, I warn that expatriation is driven by a combination of punitive tax policy and a growing perception that America will suffer a Greek-style fiscal crisis thanks to poorly designed entitlement programs.

At this point, I can’t resist a detour. Shepard Smith goofed big time when he remarked that taxpayers would “lose” because of Denise Rich’s expatriation. Nonsense. If my neighbor puts locks on his doors and bars on his windows and no longer is being robbed, that doesn’t impose any cost on me. Indeed, I’m probably helped because thieves may get discouraged and decide to live honestly instead. And even if thieves now target me because my neighbor’s house is less vulnerable, that’s not the fault of my neighbor. We should always remember that the blame should fall on the thieves. Or, in this case, the politicians. As if there’s a difference.

Now, back to the main topic, Fox did the same report at a different point in the day, but they used a different soundbite. In my second appearance (only an excerpt, not the entire segment), I explain that it doesn’t make sense to drive the geese with the golden eggs out of the country.